Retired Jeweler Brings Ingenuity To Art Works

June 21, 1987|By Jim Runnels of The Sentinel Staff

His name is Millard Fillmore and, even though he says his father never really explained the whole thing, he thinks he might be related to a former president of the United States. The late, great Fillmore installed the first bathtub in the White House when he was president from 1850 to 1852.

But let us now move on to acrylic and oil canvases, and barns and chickens and boats sticking out from the canvas: the kind of art that Lake County's Fillmore creates.

Fillmore, 70, a Miami jeweler for 40 years, previously worked privately in flat work -- canvases daubed and caressed with acrylic and oils.

It was only after his retirement and subsequent move to Lake County that his wife suggested he take his jeweler's skills from his workbench and use them to augment his painting skills.

The result is a combination painting/sculpture in which portions of the painting flow into miniature models of buildings, boats and animals.

The years Fillmore spent working at his jeweler's bench paid off. During that time, he built many tiny copies of items, his crowning glory being a solid gold, bejeweled Model T Ford.

Fillmore is not too concerned about whether he sells the designs he creates.

''I'm having a lot of fun,'' the seven-year Fruitland Park resident said. ''People seem to relate to my work.

''What I did on the bench was my art, but now I do the solid work, like barns, and then design it into my flat work,'' he said. ''I get a lot of ooh's and ahhh's about what I do.''

One of the most critical parts of Fillmore's work is maintaining the proper perspective in his paintings, with the added difficulty of extending complicated angles and foreshortened views into space.

''It's really hard to keep a handle on the perspective,'' Fillmore said. Each of his pieces includes three-dimensional additions that project about 2 1/2 inches from the canvas.

His entry in the Lake County Centennial Art Show -- a picture of a dilapidated two-story frame house -- disappointingly was placed in a jury room, well out of public view. But word spread, and some showgoers even asked where they could find his creation.

The building in the painting was complete, right down to the rusted metal roof.

One of the things Fillmore had to think about was the size of his works.

''I started with pieces 26 inches by 30 inches, and a lot of people said they liked them, but thought they were a little too big.''

So, to please the crowds at 10 or so shows a year, Fillmore dropped his canvas size to 22-by-26 inches. Now, he says, some people complain his pieces are too small.

''It doesn't matter to me,'' Fillmore said. ''I sell a piece every once in awhile, but I don't have to worry about it.

''I used to make $200 or $300 a day, so how can I expect to put 50 or 60 hours into a piece and worry about it? I'm just out there having a lot of fun.''